The Königsberg Bombings
by EnchiladaZombie
Summary: Gilbert and Ludwig are left orphaned by a German tragedy, the Königsberg Bombings. With their home left to ruin, they struggle to survive and nearly sent to a death march until they are rescued by a foreign couple. This couple, Elizabeta and Roderich, take them to a place filled with children like them. Miss Héderváry's Home for Orphaned Children. Is it too good to be true?
1. Chapter 1: The First Raid

PROLOUGE

The Empire of Prussia, a nation of immense supremacy and its capital, Königsberg. Throughout history the Germans and the Prussians are prominent figures with their strength and enormity. Dreaded by some, but then approached the World War. Germany was sent spiraling into insufficiency and inflation. German and Prussian dignity was diminished. Shortly after came the Second World War, for some interval these Germanic countries reclaimed their power and once more came to be feared and loathed.

Königsberg was such a phenomenal city and Gilbert Beilschmidt had the displeasure to reside there with his younger brother, Ludwig. The Beilschmidt family was a reputable one, not the richest of Prussia but they had a resilient German essence. With the birth of their first son, Gilbert, they lost their reverence. Gilbert brought humiliation to the household. He was born healthy and without difficulty but in appearances he frustrated the household. A son born with snowy hair and gory red eyes to parents of straw-colored hair and sapphire eyes was an atrocious occurrence to the Beilschmidt name.

Gilbert's father was swayed to believe his mother had been sleeping around. "Du Schlampe! Ich bin eine Hure heiraten! You bitch! I am married to a whore!" shouted his father day and night.

"Deine Mutter ist eine Hure und du bist ein Bastard bist! Your mother is a whore and you are a bastard son!" verses Gilbert received from both his father and from children he grew up around. No true German parent desired for their child to play with the bastard albino son of a whore so Gilbert grew up unaccompanied. His parents never divorced even if they clashed constantly and from time to time Gilbert laid witness to his mother's thrashing by his father and soon received his personal abuse when he reached the age of four. By then his mother was pregnant once more and soon came a baby brother.

The child was given the name, Ludwig. A true German name for a true German son of blond hair and blue eyes. Amidst his birth, his mother fell from this lifespan. Two brothers, one pure German and precious to his father and the other despised by his own father and considered a disgrace to the Beilschmidt name. They grew up together and Gilbert truly valued Ludwig and Ludwig admired his older brother.

Gilbert grew to be a troublesome adolescent and at the age of 12 his life would change.

CHAPTER ONE: THE KOENIGSBERG BOMBING (Gilbert's point of view)

I never really understood why appearances signified so much, "A true German has eyes of blue and hair of blond!" That is all I ever heard from my father as well as the fact that I failed to meet those requirements.

I was eating an apple I'd stolen from the market by stuffing it inside my jacket like always, I was sleight of hand and displayed astonishing dexterity. I seldom was caught and the only time I did, was when Ludwig was following me everywhere like a misplaced puppy. He was eight years old, for Christ's sake, why couldn't he just leave me alone and go play with someone else. I'm twelve, practically a man, and I don't need my kid brother following me around and getting me in trouble all the time.

"You should wipe your mouth from that apple juice running down your chin," I heard some prudish voice behind me to see, you guessed it, a prudish girl in my school class. Her stupid face has that I'm-better-than-everyone-and-especially-you face.

"Shut up," I stated and dabbed my chin with the back of my hand. Her small hands were placed on her hips and her lips were compressed.

"You can't tell a woman to shut up!" the prudish girl howled.

"Woman, where? I don't see a woman. All is see is swine." I chuckled at my joke and hurled the apple core at her feet. I could have guess her shoes would be leather and newly shined unlike my leather boots, dull with grime and dust.

"I'm telling my mamma on you!"

"Go ahead. What's she going to do? Send me to a ghetto?" by the abrupt widening of her eyes and saddening brows I immediately knew she was Jewish.

The girl quickly ran off, she was crying. I could hear her sobbing. What was she doing her? All the Jewish people were taken out of school and put in a ghetto or a camp. I thought about telling my father, that's what I was supposed to do. Tell a Nazi, like my father, that there was a Jew who wasn't wearing a Star of David and was freestanding of her ghetto. After four seconds of intense debate, I was on my way to inform my father. I knew he was going to be proud of me, I was conducting my obligation as a German!

A smile grew on my face as I jogged down the Königsberg streets in my gray tweed trousers rolled up an inch above my tan leather boots that touched my ankles. I was wearing a button up, crisp white shirt with the short sleeves rolled up enough to only cover my shoulders. My feet hit the stone paths as I dashed through crowds of blond hair. Through the masses I saw the towering figure of my father, his slicked back blond hair and swastika arm band. "Vater! Vater! Ein Jude! Sie trug keinen Stern!"

A Jew! She swore no star! That is what I told him as I ran towards him through the city mass. He didn't hear me I went to repeat myself as I was only a yard from him. "Ich sah ein Jude ohne Ster-"

My voice was cut off by the sound of air raid sirens. My eyes shot to the cobalt German sky in terror. People shrieked and disseminated in all directions looking to protect their lives. Women picked up their desperate children as the men observed the skies, eleven Pe-8 bombers speckled the sky like vultures. My father bellowed for people to hide in their cellars, he saw me and ordered me to get Ludwig. He pointed his gloved hand to the streets.

Ludwig stood in the interior of the street crying with snot dripping from his nose, he was holding an old ball bleached white by the sun his minuscule hands. I swooped him up in my arms like the mothers did with their children. Ludwig firmly wrapped his arms around my neck as he cried for our father as I ran in the opposed direction.

I bolted to take cover inside a structure but my feet felt dense like they were made of metal and the ground was a magnet. I couldn't move fast enough.

The shrilling sound of Soviet bombs overcame the sound of sirens and human shrieks. It was the last sound I heard before Ludwig was pulled from me and my body was thrust to the ground like a child's rag doll they grew weary of playing with. My skin felt scorched by fire and my ears rang. Blurry eyes that could not focus on the world as it turned to wreckage and embers around me. Blood from my forehead mixed with the hue of my eyes.

Another explosion, and then another. Ludwig lay motionless on the street. Tranquil and tainted with blood and filth. My body felt numb and my I strained to yell for Ludwig to awaken.

Wake up!

Wake up!

No noise fled my lips and if it did, the buzzing and blood in my ears disguised my voice.

Edifices were reduced to hollow shells. Everything expired to gloomy obscurity.


	2. Chapter 2: The Aftermath

"Idiot! Stop moving! You'll hurt yourself more than you previously did!" My arms desperately moved around as I strained to sit up, but the woman who offended me was resilient and pushed me down. I could not perceive what she looked like, my senses were blinded by bright lights as my pupils are additionally sensitive than most due to my unfortunate albinism. "It is not in the slenderest way proper or polite for you to call a wounded adolescent an 'idiot' while he is alarmed and utterly unaware of his surroundings. Nor is it ladylike, Elizabeta." My eyes began to adjust to the light just enough to see the man who spoke was tall, lanky and elegantly attractive. The surprisingly strong woman, Elizabeta, wasn't elegant in most ways. Her wavy hair was in a disorganized bun with hair pins that stood out in distinction from her tresses. She wore a commonplace kitchen dress with a floral arrangement nearly veiled from sight by dirt and residue. Even her skin and hair was layered in filth excluding her hands and apron. I struggled to talk, but my throat was parched and only a pitiable whimper escaped my lips. Elizabeta looked at me, reached for a glass of water on a stand near the makeshift cot I lay on. "Here," she held the cup to my cracking lips and tilted it. Cool water rushed down my throat and I had never been more appreciative of water in my life. It felt like cool rain finally reaching a desert damned by a 100 year drought. "You called for your brother in your sleep. Ludwig, that's his name correct?" I jerked up only to reel backward in a shriek of pain that shot up my abdomen. My pale hands cupped the origin of the pain, I looked down to see cherry-red blood soaking through sterile, white bandages tightly wrapped around me. "Where… where is he?" I managed through grit teeth. "I can get him! Just don't move, you'll rip your wound again if you do and you're running out of blood to lose." Elizabeta let out a nervous laugh and walked away in a hurry. He was alive, Ludwig was alive. I was alive! The last thing I saw was the world crashing around me and fiery rain shrouded in human ash and concrete dust. Now I lay on a hard cot and stare at eggshell white roof. I wait to see my brother, my little brother who was alive. I wonder if he was hurt, he must not be if he wasn't in a cot like the other children and adults. All around me, people wrapped in bandages stained with blood and a strange yellowish fluid. This fluid was a sign of infection, we didn't have the correct supplies to care for this many people, especially after being bombed and everything was contaminated by rubble. Just in earshot, I heard the voice of the woman, I couldn't make out the words, but I knew she was talking to a child by the friendly pitch. There was no reply, no childish laughter. Just empty silence and the one sided conversation held by Elizabeta. "Your brother is here, he wants to see you. Don't you want to see him, Ludwig?" Her footsteps grew close until I saw her face looking down into a wheelchair. The wheelchair squeaked as the wheels were rusty and flat on one side. Ludwig was motionless, he stared at me with cloudy eyes behind a wall of obvious sadness. He used to be so radiantly happy yet mature for his young age. My teeth grinned as I pushed through the pain to sit up. I felt tears welling up in my eyes, he was virtually uninjured except for a bloody bandage on his forehead and a few scabs and bruises. I remember watching him fall from my arms onto the brick streets. Ludwig's blue eyes wandered over my face until they went back to blankly starring at seemingly nothing. "Ludwig, it's me. Look at me, Ludwig, its Gilbert!" my voice cracked, I wanted him to look at me. To see me, I just need him to look into my eyes and smile, nod, anything. "Why won't you look at me?" "Gilbert," the woman said "that's your name, right?" I wiped my cheeks clean of tears and nodded. "I'm Miss Héderváry. Over there," she pointed to the elegant man "that's Mister Edelstein. We came here to Germany like we came to many other counties, to save refugee children. Most of them are Jewish and their parents gave them over to us before the Nazi's take them to a camp. Since the bombings started to occur frequently we began to find children orphaned by them. Mister Edelstein and I believe you and your brother to be one of those orphaned by the war." "No, we are not! My father is alive. Just like me and Ludwig, he's out helping people and then he will be back for us. When he comes back we'll fix Königsberg and everything will be okay again!" I yelled at her and I fidgeted with my bandages. I knew he was dead, I just never wanted to admit it to myself. "Gilbert, I'm sorry." Miss Héderváry leant out a hand to my shoulder but I quickly smacked it away. "We asked if anyone knew where your father and mother was and we were told your mother died a few years ago and no one knows the whereabouts of your father. Unless anyone here happens to be your father…" She paused for a moment, "Everyone here was either an orphaned child or in a coma when we found them." "Ludwig, stop staring like an idiot!" I shouted. "LOOK AT ME!" Mister Edelstein ran towards me and Miss Héderváry quickly caught me as I fell off the side of the cot, screaming at my silent brother. "Goddammit, Ludwig! Dad is alive, tell them! TELL THEM!" "Gilbert, calm down!" Miss Héderváry whispered and with all her strength restrained me as I raised my fists and slammed them on the ground. "No! Answer me, Ludwig! What's wrong with you? Ludwig! Why won't you talk to me?" "Ludwig can't answer you, Gilbert." Mister Edelstein gazed down upon me with utter disgust as I kneeled on the filthy ground covered in blood, sweat and tears. Ludwig merely stared forward with eyes like dying crystals and his body hardly moved. "Why not?" my voice was sorrowful as I struggled to form words through sobs. "He's brain-dead." 


End file.
